Tuesday, October 27, 2015

Another View of Nephi’s Ship

As mentioned in the last article, the problem of slamming a
ship into wave after wave, in this case “broaching” waves where the prow of the
vessel runs down a trough and slams into the wall of the approaching wave, can
cause serious damage, both structurally, as well as ship handling. Such impacts
cause wear and tear on deep-ocean sailing, as well as can result in capsizing,
or at least causing the ship to veer sharply off course. Loosing control of the
vessel in such conditions can result in serious problems, such as capsizing.

Broaching
is running the prow into the wall of the wave ahead. Not only does this eventually cause structural damage, but can slam the vessel around parallel to the wave where it can slide down the trough and capsize, especially in the hands of a novice seaman For an inexperienced crew, such as on Nephi’s ship, such
deep ocean sailing could be difficult without the constant directions the
Liahona would have provided. In this case, with the approach of such swells,
the problem can be overcome with knowledge—such as reducing speed to match the
conditions approaching, or better still, to alter course to a new one where
broaching is not a threat. No doubt this is one of the reasons why Nephi’s
ship included a rudder for steerage (1 Nephi 18:13).While smashing into steep four footers in fifty knot winds
at 26 knots is no problem for boats built to withstand the impact; however, such
constructed ships did not exist before the 13th or 14th
centuries A.D. The designs before that time simply were not capable of handling
this and other rigors of sailing in deep water. In fact, many had trouble with
severe rolling in only there following seas—which is one of the reasons we scoff at writers who claim Phoenicians in 600 B.C. were sailing into deep water, their ship construction simply would not have allowed them to do so.According to David Pascoe, author of Rough Water Seamanship, and an expert in blue water sailing, “Understanding
the effects of wind, waves and currents is not an easy subject to master. Waves
behave differently under a large variety of different conditions, so that
unless one is familiar with all, or at least most of these conditions, then one
is not experienced. That's why to get an ocean operator's license from the USCG
requires that an applicant prove that they have had a large number of hours
under such conditions.”Speaking about
today’s boat designs, he goes on to say that “Hull design has a lot to do with
how different boats will handle under different conditions. The simple fact is
that the vast majority of boats sold today are designed for creature comforts,
not rough water performance. The number of boats around that have good rough
water capabilities are few and far between. One reason for this is that people
are not willing to give up luxury and convenience for good handling
characteristics. And so the vast majority of boats are best suited for
protected, not open water operation.”

Unknowing scholars try to claim Phoenicians
and others were sailing deep water long before ships were built capable of
such. Mediterranean and Arabian Sea sailing was basically in protected waters
compared to the open ocean. This is why when Phoenicians passed Gibraltar, into
the Atlantic, they stayed close to the shore on their way north to England and Gaul
or south to North AfricaIn a different way,
but none-the-less as important, ships of early traders who plied the coasts of
the Mediterranean and Indian Oceans, were far more interested in cargo capacity
than good handling characteristics. Nor did they need to be since they did not
sail deep water, did not sail out of the view of land, did not sail at night,
and were interested basically in moving goods from one point to another for
trade and profit.To attribute to these
early traders skills beyond their capability and interest is simply unrealistic
as is its purpose. Until governments were willing to pay for ships and men to
investigate foreign lands for the purpose of expanding empires, man showed very
little interest in exploration. In the Age of Columbus, ships were provided by kings, or other type investors, even the Church was involved in putting up the money for such activities based upon a return on their investment.With kings, control and conquest drove most early
movements, as did the need for relocation because of such conquest. But in
truth, the Age of Exploration, which coincided with the Age of Sail, did not
really occur until around the 12th century A.D. onward. We might
attribute an early date to the Vikings, though their expansion was more in the
area of conquest than it was for settlement, the latter being mostly temporary
attempts that had little success in Iceland and Greenland, and eventually none
at all in the Americas.Consequently, to
claim that the Phoenicians had an interest in early exploration is to attribute
to them an interest they did not exhibit. The Phoenicians were traders,
acquiring and selling goods throughout the Mediterranean and as far north as
England and Gaul (for the tin trade) and as far south as the North Africa coast
to present-day Ghana, for the gold and slaves. It should be kept in mind that exploration was not
profitable to any sea captain, nor even a trading nation other than when used
to open up new markets, as the
Phoenicians did along the Western Mediterranean coasts.

Thus, the early sailing
trade operations were done along coastal waters in protected, not open water,
operations, such as along the Arabian Sea and within the Mediterranean, Red
Sea, Persian Gulf, etc. Historians can give credit to Phoenicians for sailing
the open ocean, but it never happened. Ancient information show us the type of
ships they had and they were simply not capable of withstanding the rigors of
deep sea sailing. To continue to claim they did things they could not have done
is to skew the past, rewrite history, and mislead readers on how the Americas
were settled and by whom and under what circumstances.In addition, there are
many theorists who want to place experienced seamen aboard Nephi’s ship, since
even the best of boat designs and construction won’t overcome the lack of
knowledge and seamanship skills. As an example, when waves reach a certain
height, it becomes necessary for the operator to match the speed of the vessel
with the speed of the waves. This means slowing down or speeding up, depending
on conditions. It is not a good idea to stuff the bow into the backside of the
wave ahead, without raising the possibility of broaching and losing control. If
you permit the boat to go zooming off the front side of the wave, you have to
consider the consequences of what happens when you quickly meet the backside of
the wave ahead. As an example, would you drive your car 50 miles an hour down a
road full of foot deep potholes? The analogy is an appropriate one here. You'd
end up tearing the wheels off the car, losing control and crashing. When the
wind blows, the seas become full of potholes. And worse.

Thus one cannot
consider Nephi’s ship without also considering the Liahona and its role in
teaching and training the crew how to handle the vessel, when to make
corrections, and what corrections to make. Obviously, the ball was capable of
written instruction (1 Nephi 16:26-28).Another very important part of Nephi’s ship construction was
in the fact that some designs make for better handling of the ship than others.
The average seaman today has experience on two or maybe three different
designs, but that is not necessarily enough to show how really different
designs can handle. In Nephi’s case, he needed a vessel that was really easy
and simple to handle, requiring the least amount of knowledge and skill to sail.Seamanship is the
ability acquired by a seaman to pilot his vessel skillfully under adverse
conditions. It's a skill that involves understanding your boat, wind, waves,
tides, currents and geography. Nowadays, operating a boat is regarded as little
different than driving a car: just get in and steer the boat around. We see
this casual disregard for the need to acquire any kind of boating skills
whatsoever on every single weekend at the local marinas where we can observe
dozens of boat owners who have yet to learn even how to dock their boats with
any degree of skill.The less the vessel
requires of skill and knowledge, the easier it would be to sail. Skill and
knowledge are especially required when sailing through ocean inlets, tide rips
(riptides) that cause waves to become taller and steeper, with less distance
between crests; and also rocky shoals jutting miles out from islands.There is also the
problem with “confused-seas” that occur following thunderstorms, hurricanes or
major fronts. In such cases, currents are overwhelmed by major shifts in wind
conditions that occur quickly, which causes waves coming from different
directions, resulting in waves that are
irregular and unpredictable—this can drive a vessel into an island,
shoal, or other underwater or above sea obstacle in channels or island-hopping
in the Pacific. Rogue waves, even smaller ones, can occur when in these
conditions, two waves coming from different directions from earlier currents
and winds strike at oblique (very wide) angles, causing difficulties in tight
areas.

Top: An unmanned, underwater robot (glider Scarlet Knight) designed and run by Rutgers University maneuvers through the dangerous opposing and circular currents in swirling eddy fields of the deep ocean to collect data below the waves where satellites cannot see for the U.S. Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS); Middle: Eddies swirl around the Southern Ocean between the tip of South America and Antarctica and are key to the mixing of air and water through this dangerous Drake Passage creating what dynamical systems experts call the "unstable manifold"; Bottom: NASA Scientific Visualization assembled this map from large amounts of satellite information, with the world's "Perpetual Ocean" currents showing eddies, swirling currents of the surface current flow of the ocean's topographyCoastal currents,
swirling eddies, tidal flows between major islands, and other problems
encountered when sailing near shore, islands, channels, etc., which, by the
way, most theorists have Lehi doing in his island-hopping across the Pacific,
all lead to difficulty in sailing and especially among inexperienced captains
and crews. After all, once you pilot a boat into troubled waters, you
become trapped by them.The point is, what
looks all right on a map on paper is seldom the case in real life on the sea!As an example, It can
more comfortable, and safer, cruising in twelve foot waves than six foot waves
(under some, but not all, circumstances) as long as the captain has any
understanding at all of waves. In such circumstances, he will know that
it's not the height of the wave that is most important, but the distance
between waves. If the distance is very far, as with swells, they can be very
large indeed, but not be threatening or causing undue discomfort. Yet a steep
four-foot chop can be downright dangerous or make your time on the water
miserable.

4 comments:

I am greatly enjoying the recent articles. I will admit to a nautical ignorance for much of my life. When growing up away from the coast, it is easy to just assume the oceans are like a lake, just bigger.

I have found that most of the theorists who write about the Book of Mormon Land of Promise also have a nautical ignorance and it causes them to make comments and lay out courses that were simply impossible in Lehi's time